News

It's the first of its kind in 600 years, and it's on display at Providence University College.

The St. John's Bible is a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible, and it's the first to be created since the development of Johannes Gutenberg's movable type printing press in the 1450s.

"When you think of a Bible now, like the one I have on my desk, it's small, leather-bound, and just text," Jerrad Peters from Providence University College says.

"It's something we share together, that we read together, that we ponder together, and that we approach together."

By comparison the St. John's Bible is two feet by three feet when it's opened. "It's also illuminated with colour and gold leaf," Peters says.

The artwork within the Bible was all done by hand. It serves to add a visual element to the text (PUC).Not only is its size and the artwork within unique, but this Bible also adds a new perspective to how people engage with it.

"By virtue of its size the manuscript has to be a shared manuscript. We look at it together, we consider the text together . . . Donald Jackson, the chief calligrapher, wanted this to be an evangelization tool."

Peters says he hopes that people "would come away with a different idea of what the physical Bible could be. It's not something that we hit each other over the head with. It's something we share together, that we read together, that we ponder together, and that we approach together. That's the only way we can actually approach this physical Bible. Doing it together, and consider it together, and enjoying God's Word together."

Visitors are free to visit the Bible on a come and go basis through the remainder of Wednesday at Providence's Student Life Centre.

Verse of the Day

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven”